There seems to be two general categories for NHL team sales lately: desperate (Phoenix, Atlanta) and seemingly inevitable (Dallas, St. Louis and Buffalo). That’s not to say that the latter group of sales lack drama or tension, but the Stars, Blues and Sabres seem like they’re able to attract legitimate interest even if the process isn’t always very smooth.
In the case of the Blues, it seems like they are at least slightly at the mercy of what happens with the Stars. Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the group handling the Blues’ sale expects there to be some overflow from the parties who will lose the bidding war for the Stars, although that might be a slight problem since the deadline to make a nonbinding bid for the Blues has been set for August 22. Rutherford reports that this deadline could allow a purchase agreement to be in place by “mid-September.”
“We’ll review (the offers), make judgments, make comparisons and then we’ll go back to everyone and give them a reaction to their proposal,” Game Plan’s Robert Caporale said. “We don’t want to slow down the process, but until we get these detailed proposals, it’s hard to predict how long it will take to get a binding contract with a buyer. But we hope that we could get it done within a couple of weeks” of Aug. 22.”
Once a purchase agreement is in place, the sale would move into the final stages, which includes NHL approval. The league’s next Board of Governors’ meeting is scheduled for Sept. 20, followed by one in December. If the sale is ready for approval in between those two meetings, it’s possible the governors could vote via a conference call.
Game Plan LLC – the company handling the sale – reportedly sent out 10 packets to parties who have expressed an interest in the Blues, although it’s important to note that it doesn’t mean all 10 parties should be considered legitimate suitors. Things could get a bit more complicated if the Stars sale isn’t completed by August 22 since, again, there might be some spurned suitors who would move from trying to acquire the Stars to the Blues.
Here are a few dates that might be of interest in this situation, even if there’s no guarantee that benchmarks will be met in time to fulfill them.
August 22: Again, this is the reported deadline for groups to make “nonbinding” bids for the Blues.
September 20: The NHL Board of Governors meeting will take place, so it would be ideal to get the new owner in place by then so the BoG could vote to approve or disapprove that new owner.
October 8: The Blues’ season opener isn’t a hard deadline, but it might be nice to get a new owner in place by then anyway.
“Undisclosed deadline”: Current Blues owner Dave Checketts needs to get this deal done sooner rather than later after he received an extension to pay back the $120 million loan he took out with CitiGroup to buy the team.
Obviously from that timeline, a lot could happen in a very short time frame, although these situations have a tendency to hit a wall or two here and there. The one thing that might expedite the process is the possibility that a group might circumvent the bidding process by meeting the asking price for the team.
“We have not agreed to do that, but at least it’s an option,” Caporale said. “We’d like to give everybody a chance. (But) if the person comes up with a price that’s acceptable to everybody and willing to sign an agreement, it speeds up the process.”
Stay tuned for updates regarding a franchise that some are calling a possible “sleeper team” in the Western Conference.
